Letter: Should we arm children?

Tuesday

Apr 3, 2018 at 7:11 PMApr 3, 2018 at 7:11 PM

In 1729, Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal,” for solving the problem of poverty and famine in Ireland: “Eat the children,” he advised. Here's a 21st-century modest proposal: Don't just arm the school teachers; arm the children. What shooter would enter a school knowing he'd face a blizzard of bullets from dozens of heat-packing second graders?

Ridiculous, you say? Why, it's only an extension of the gun advocates' logic. More good people with guns. Moreover, gun sales would spike. The gun lobby, for whom many politicians work, would be ecstatic.

Some, even gun advocates, might have problems with this proposal. But have they examined their own logic? The 2008 Supreme Court Heller decision, in which the Supreme Court declared that bearing arms was an individual right, was based on the argument that a person has the right to defend themselves with a firearm. Since that decision, however, the number of people who have actually used weapons to defend themselves has been minimal. Moreover, the number of people who use guns to hunt is declining.

Yet gun sales are up. Fewer people are buying more guns. What is driving gun sales? Apparently, a growing fantasy that arms will be needed to fend off a jack-booted government, intent on taking away our rights and installing a dictatorship. The solution? Jack-booted, armed government agents to “harden” schools and other public venues. Shopping malls, museums, sports arenas, concert venues, clubs — any place where people congregate — must be hardened, all so the Eric Freins of the world are free to live out their fantasies.

Wouldn't money be better spent on home security systems? Or on adequate counseling in schools so we can identify students who are stressed by home life, depressed, bullied, alienated or bored by irrelevant curricula?

Should we arm them? Or help them?

Merlyn Clarke

Stroud Township

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